For Valentine’s Day
Dear Nature,
I was born in the city, south London, where the world began in brick and pavement, bus routes and back gardens.
My first knowing of you was small and local. A park at the end of the road, grass worn thin by feet, trees doing their best between railings and paths.
Then there was a trip to the seaside. Salt on the air, wind that felt different from anything I’d known. The moment I realised the world was larger than streets and that something in me recognised it. You have been calling me ever since.
You taught me what intimacy really is. Before romance had language, before love had shape, you showed me closeness without demand. The way the sea breathes in and out without asking for applause. The way mountains stand without needing to be understood. The way light arrives each morning, faithful and unannounced.
I have loved people deeply. In friendships that felt like home. In kinship that rooted me and sometimes tested me. In love… tender, imperfect, sincere… where I learned devotion, restraint, and letting go. And always, you were there.
I have walked beside you with others, talking, laughing, sometimes falling quiet together.
I have held hands under wide skies and sat shoulder to shoulder on cold stone, saying nothing, letting the view speak for us.
I have returned to you alone when love ended, when words failed, when grief needed somewhere to land.
I have loved you in the Swiss Alps, where stillness felt sacred and the air itself seemed to listen. In the Norwegian fjords, where water and rock held each other in ancient conversation. In the Lake District, where softness taught me that grandeur doesn’t have to shout. In the New Forest, where wild ponies and winding paths reminded me that freedom can be gentle.
I have loved you in Yosemite, standing beneath cliffs that made my worries feel appropriately small. In Australia’s Red Centre, where the earth spoke in heat and time and endurance. In Port Douglas and the Blue Mountains, where rainforest mist and eucalyptus air wrapped around me like reassurance. In the Maldives, where salt mornings and starlit nights held something deep, unquestioned.
You have been the witness to every version of my heart. You have held my happiness without jealousy and my sorrow without trying to fix it. From you, I learned that love does not need to possess to be profound. That connection can be steady without being loud. That some loves stay, some change, and some pass through… all of them real.
I have learned that love softens again the moment we stop asking it to stay.
So on this Valentine’s Day, while the world writes to lovers and roses and promises, I write to you. The love that predates all others. The place I return to when I need to remember how to breathe.
Thank you for teaching me how to love people better. With more space. With more patience. With less fear. I promise to walk gently, to listen longer. To love you not as a backdrop, but as a living presence.
Always yours,
Vivienne
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